I look back on the images of the first grass cutting and preparation for raised beds and think 'wow!' we have already made good progress in our dye garden project @tecstiliau.cymru.
As of today, all five raised beds are built and in place. Most of these have been lined and already have layers of our 'no dig' materials in.
We have sourced the used scaffolding boards locally. This maintains our efforts to try and reuse materials that are already in the area (and save a bit on delivery!). These boards have come from a local construction project that is coming to an end and the company sold them on to us. This was an affordable and low mileage option and the scaffold boards have plenty of wear still in them.
To line the beds, we are using old builder bags. We all have a few of these lying around and they are just right for lining the inside of the beds. This keeps the soil in and puts a layer in between the wood and the soil to help get more time out of our wood.
The beds measure 4 metres x 1 metre each. This should accommodate a series of square planting spaces in each bed. Since we are growing 'crop' we are aiming to plant out larger sections of each plant to maximise our yield.
Our seedlings are looking a bit small in comparison to our beds at the moment, but something tells me that we will be wishing that we have more space when we start planting out!
We have our fruit trees in too! Three of these are in 'keg' planters reclaimed from the pub and one has been planted in to the central bed as a feature. Two apples and two pears for cross-pollination.
Who knew that our indoor space would be so useful as a greenhouse. We have been making the most of the sunny, garden side of the building to grow our seedlings.
With a drop in temperatures recently growth has slowed a bit for the last set of seeds sown. But the first set that had the earlier warmth are happy. Most of these have been successfully repotted to refresh their compost and give them more individual space.
They are looking a bit sad in this photo having just been repotted and had some rain outside; but am sure they will be happy and strong in the long run.
For the remainder of May our priorities are to keep an eye on the seedlings, organise more soil to be delivered for our raised beds to top them up and ensure that we have a rainwater supply to water all those plants once they are hardened off and planted out next month. We hope you will continue to follow along as we provide you with updates on our garden.
Thank you for supporting us and reading about our adventures to date. :)